Human error at Inland Revenue has resulted in as many as 45,000 Bank of New Zealand customers being issued incomplete tax statements and possibly incorrect tax demands.
An IRD mistake led to tax statements and possibly incorrect tax demands being issued for some BNZ customers. Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
The mistake has come to light after BNZ customers contacted RNZ, complaining their IRD statements had no record of their business with the bank, although their dealings with other banks were fully detailed.
"Inland Revenue has found that two batches of automatic tax assessments issued in June didn't include investment income information sent from the BNZ," IRD said in a statement.
"This is a matter of human error with how the information was dealt with when it arrived at Inland Revenue."
Some customers who complained to RNZ said they had been told in their statements they owed tax to IRD, and also said they had found it impossible to contact IRD either through its phone helpline or website to rectify the mistakes.
"We are still investigating the issue to determine how we can assist these customers to make any changes needed to their assessments when and if required."
IRD said it was confident the error affected only a small group of BNZ customers, who were less than 2 percent of the issued, and that it had the correct information from all the other major banks.